Every step is a step forward

If I knew as much about computer science as my grandchildren, I would find myself spending a great deal more time on my computer.  It seems a great effort to begin any work at all!  Why is it that they make seem so easy, kinda like breathing!  I think it comes natural to them.  They have been participating in this computer stuff even before they read ,write or learn to type.

I remember my grandson Myles at the age of three showing me how to start a movie in the VCR while I was babysitting him.  Forget about  me trying to record a favorite program on the VCR my daughter bought me for christmas four years ago, or trying to set the timer to turn off the television in case I fell asleep.

Now that I think really think about it, it is everything electronic!  It took me two months to figure out how to set the new clock on my new oven after a power outage.   What I am really embarrassed about and hate to admit to anyone is that it took me a year and a half after having a pacemaker implanted in my chest and receiving my first hefty life-saving jolt that I went searching for my latitude machine (It is the monitor that reports to the hospital if my heart begins a dangerous arrythmia)  It was still in the box!   I truly had tried several times to hook it up to my landline and message machine, but couldn't get any of them to work together, so, I gave up and put it back in the box it came in and put it in the front closet.

When I received that first shock from my pacemaker at 3:00 a.m. inthe morning, I can tell you that I went looking for that box and needless to say, I figured out how to make that Latitude machine work.  ( At the doctor's office the next morning, the staff commented on how surprised they were to get my information for the very first time during the night!

I don't want to admit I'm stubborn, but maybe that is my problem!  I really do need to know all this technical stuff and not ignore things that virtually can keep me alive.

I know it seems laughable to even my youngest grandson, Jaxson.   I can't bear his looking at me in a kind of unbelieving disgust that he has had to break away from his video game he is playing with a new found friend from the Netherlands to come downstairs and turn on the television for a grown woman!

I truly want to become really good at all these technical things, and even more than that, I want my grandchildren to look at me with different eyes.  I may still need their help once in awhile and I'm sure they will think it's funny that I am still pretty much in the dark, but I will try harder and just like they finally learned to master these things, Eventually, I will too!

                                                         By Nannette Gregory